Friday, January 04, 2008

One racy trike: The SUB G1

Based in Southern California in the US, SUB was set up by Niki Smart, Jay Brett and Nick Mynott. The small company caters to people who want individualistic, one-off runabouts. And the G1, a three-wheeler, is one such vehicle – a fully functional, road-legal trike that can also be used on the track for a bit of fun!

Designed back in 2005, the SUB G1 was built to look good and go hard. The aim was to build a lightweight, single-seat, high-performance canyon carver. Here, handling and being fun to ride were more important than acceleration and outright top speed.

With two wheels at the front and one at the back, the 330-kilo G1 features tubular spaceframe construction and has a 50/50 front/rear weight distribution ratio. Suspension is double unequal length wishbones and anti-roll bar at front, and a single-sided arrangement – upper and lower trailing arms – at the rear. Steering is rack and pinion, and 350mm brake discs with twin-piston calipers are used on all wheels, which are 18-inch, forged aluminum numbers.

The Suzuki TL1000’s engine has been used in the SUB G1. The 996cc, DOHC, 8-valve, liquid-cooled, fuel-injected v-twin makes 135bhp and 105Nm of torque, and is mated to a six-speed sequential gearbox. (Surprisingly, however, there is no reverse gear.) Final drive is via chain, to the rear wheel. The G1’s estimated top speed is around 225km/h.

According to an email sent to us by Jay Brett, one of the founders of SUB, development and refinement work on the G1 is still on. Says Brett, ‘The sensation of driving one of these is incomparable. A bit like a bike, but you are fixed down low and in a reclined formula car position. It’s quite an awesome feeling, a shifter kart for the road!’

Three G1s exist today, with two of them being registered for road use in SoCal and the third one being in the UK. SUB claim that the G1 makes you feel like a racecar driver, because of its superbike-like speed and formula car handling. Indeed, we think the trike is quite fascinating and we quite like the way it looks. You can visit the SUB website for more pictures and details.